My cat hides dead mice. What else is he hiding?
My wife and I have been joking with our neighbors lately about TV ads that a Super PAC supporting their cat, Kobie, might run against our cat, Owl. Now Scott Simon's reporting on an ad someone actually made:
Cute, but the concept's better than the execution. Allegations that the candidate used catnip? "More facts and fewer fat cats?" Meh.
The scripts we've thought up attacking candidate Stefgate (a portmanteau of my wife's last name and mine) have been, I dare say, a bit wilder. A sample:
[Patriotic music plays while a child rubs a large tabby cat's belly.]
NARRATOR: Owl Stefgate loves a good belly rub. In fact, he'll give up anything for one...
[The music turns menacing as the scene's colors drain to grainy black-and-white.]
NARRATOR ...anything.
[Surveillance-camera-style footage of two masked burlgars. One rubs the cat's belly and laughs maniacally; the other makes off with the cat's food, water and litter box, along with an apartment full of scratched-up furniture. Jokes about cat burglars are studiously avoided.]
NARRATOR. If elected, would Owl Stefgate lie down for the U.N.? How about...for the Iranians?
[The same tabby lies contentedly atop the Resolute Desk while, in slow motion, MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD rubs his belly. AYATOLLAH ALI KHAMENEI sits on the floor nearby--right on top of the oval rug's presidential seal--where he is hard at work enriching uranium.]
NARRATOR. Lazy, affectionate cats are for Tumblrs and wall calendars, not for protecting us from our enemies. Owl Stefgate: Wrong for national security. Wrong for America.
To be sure, it's one thing to crack jokes over a beer and quite another to actually take the time to shoot an attack ad about a cat. So, kudos to the people behind the anti-Hank Super PAC for that. Now if I could just track down a video camera, an Oval Office replica and an Ayatollah Khamenei impersonator...
